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Yes I still have enough slots to add more HDDs to my unRaid system, and I don't need to open the chassis or touch any cables...But what both of you said does make more sense, so I started a non-correcting parity check and if everything was alright I will be adding the hard drive...

However, I have a question. Once someone here said although my system supports hot-swap (My method is to stop the array, add the HDD, assign the HDD, then start the array) basically he said he would prefer to power down the system entirely, and then add the HDD...What do you guys think of this?

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However, I have a question. Once someone here said although my system supports hot-swap (My method is to stop the array, add the HDD, assign the HDD, then start the array) basically he said he would prefer to power down the system entirely, and then add the HDD...What do you guys think of this?

Hot swap "should just work". However... my personal preference is to power down.

Why? Partly because I know it will work, and if something is wonky on the restart, it's one less part of the equation to troubleshoot. If something goes sideways during a hot swap, was it the hot swap part, or did something else cause it? The array has to be stopped anyway, it's only a couple more minutes to power down all the way and restart. It's not like you are in a high availability environment where the services are expected not to be down.

Because of the way unraid loads and runs, it's a fresh install on every reboot anyway, so why not replicate the next full power cycle?

Hypothetical scenerio...

Hot swap (insert) the new drive, everything is peachy, array and all services come back up no issues, but the next time the array is shut down and powered off, it won't boot.

What happened? Did the BIOS pick up the new drive and decide to mangle the boot order? Is the PSU just on the edge of being powerful enough to cold fire all the drives? Now you have a troubleshooting session with no clear way forward, and unraid is expecting the drive to be there for parity to be valid, so you shouldn't just pull the drive and retry the boot.

Same scenario with a no boot after a powered down cold addition, clear troubleshooting step is to unplug the new drive and see what happens.